Ranked-choice
voting in San Francisco Ranked-choice voting was
passed by the voters of San Francisco as an amendment to the City’s
Charter (Proposition A) in March 2002.

Ranked-choice voting allows San
Francisco voters to elect local officials by selecting a first-choice
candidate in the first column on the ballot, and different second- and
third-choice candidates in the second and third columns on the ballot.

How it
worksTo start, every first-choice
vote is counted. Any candidate who receives a majority (more than 50%)
of the first-choice votes is declared the winner.
If no candidate receives more than 50% of the first-choice votes, a
process of eliminating candidates and transferring votes begins.

First, the candidate who received
the fewest number of first-choice votes is eliminated from the race.

Second, voters who selected the
eliminated candidate as their first choice will have their vote
transferred to their second choice.

Third, all the votes are
recounted.

Once the votes are recounted, if
any candidate has received more than 50% of the votes, he or she is
declared the winner.

If no candidate receives more
than 50% of the votes, the process of eliminating candidates and
transferring votes is repeated until one candidate has a winning
majority.